Fear and pain are both uncomfortable experiences to endure. In our advanced society, we have medicine that can help manage our pain. We also have medicine that can manage our fears, but for both fear and pain our discomfort won’t go away with medicine alone, we have to treat the root cause. Some pain can be mitigated with surgery, but there is no surgery for fear. This is where you have to become the hero of your own story. Instead of reaching out for a quick fix for your fear, take the path of most resistance and address what the root cause of your fear is and you will have given yourself a calming tonic that lasts a lifetime.

Think about when you have been in an intense episode of fear. For me, redline anxiety felt like choking and being compressed into nothingness. Quite uncomfortable to say the least. In all the experiences of life, my most intense fear episodes stick in my mind more than my episodes with pain. I have had my fair share of migraines, torn muscles and cramps but I can nearly give a time and date for each of my panic challenges. Because fear is so hard wired into our survival mechanism it takes time and practice to help heal from that trauma. We can splint broken bones or suture deep cuts, but psychological wounds take a much more individualized approach to heal from fully.

When we are uncomfortable, most of us want the discomfort to stop. Discomfort can be mild such as having to pee on a long road trip or severe like being stuck in the woods with no sense of direction or how to get home safely. Pain is a temporary discomfort for many of us, but fear can be a daily, hourly or even minute by minute ordeal we have to navigate. No matter if we are in intense pain or intense fear, there is always a way through the experience but that path requires expertise like an experienced trail guide taking new hikers on a difficult trail.

In terms of longevity, fear can in many ways be worse than pain, however neither pain nor fear should be used to increase your standing in the suffering Olympics. The goal of the Anxiety Warrior is to overcome their own perceived limitations and share their message of triumph with others. I can tell you with the most profound truth of my being that whatever your goal is you can and will reach it with enough willpower and compassion for yourself.

You are a unique human

Your story matters more than you know

You deserve to conquer your pain and fear

Take care of yourself Warrior.

–Wes